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Ukraine has targeted oil refineries and a military airfield in a Russian region bordering annexed Crimea, officials said, as Russia claimed its air defence systems had intercepted more than 60 drones in the region.
In a rare comment on strikes on Russian soil, Ukraine’s energy ministry said two oil refineries in the Krasnodar region had been hit by drones, while an intelligence source told Reuters that the Kushchevsk military airfield, which lies in the same region, was also targeted.
Meanwhile, Russia launched its own barrage of missiles at Ukrainian power facilities, hitting locations in the centre and western regions of Dnipropetrovsk, Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk, damaging equipment and injuring at least one energy worker, officials said.
It came as US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said Washington was “rushing” to provide fresh arms supplies to Ukraine, especially Patriot air defence missiles and artillery ammunition, as it finalised a new $6bn aid package for Kyiv.
Volodymyr Zelensky had pleaded with the US and other allies to send more Patriots, warning that at least seven more systems were needed.
US intelligence believes Putin probably didn’t order his rival Navalny’s killing, report claims
US intelligence agencies are said to have concluded that Vladimir Putin probably did not directly order the killing of his most prominent critic Alexei Navalny, who suddenly died in his Arctic prison cell in February.
According to The Wall Street Journal, US intelligence services believe Putin most likely did not choose for the killing to be carried out or the date on which it took place.
While the findings by US intelligence agencies did not “dispute Putin’s culpability” for his rival’s death – given the conditions Mr Navalny was being held in and the constant harassment he had faced – the report said it is believed that he “probably did not order it at that moment”.
These findings have been accepted within the intelligence community and shared across several wings of intelligence in Washington, including the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the State Department’s intelligence unit, the paper reported, citing people aware of the matter.
My colleague Arpan Rai has the full report:
Macron to spend longer in Germany than planned, sources say
Emmanuel Macron will visit Germany in May and will spend more days than planned with chancellor Olaf Scholz, government sources have told Reuters, in a sign of their ambition to bring more unity to EU relations.
Mr Macron’s previously announced state visit from 26-28 May could be followed by another trip to Germany the next month as well, the sources said, in a possible sign that Franco-German relations remain strong, despite reports of deep disagreement between the two leaders.
Although both leaders show support for Ukraine against the Russian invasion, his approaches on how to help the country differ, with Germany being more cautious about weapon deliveries or sending troops.
But at an EU summit last week, Mr Macron and Mr Scholz said they wanted to jointly implement an EU capital markets union and reduce bureaucracy in the single market.
Moscow may seize private US assets in Russia if US seizes frozen reserves, says Putin ally
Russia may respond to any US confiscation of its currency reserves frozen in the West by seizing the assets, including property and cash, of US citizens and investors in Russia, former president Dmitry Medvedev has threatened.
The US House of Representatives has passed a bill allowing the Biden administration to confiscate Russian assets held in American banks and transfer them to Ukraine, something the Kremlin has said would be illegal and trigger retaliation.
In response to Russia’s war in Ukraine, the US and its allies prohibited transactions with Russia’s central bank and finance ministry and blocked about $300bn of sovereign Russian assets in the West, most of which are in European not American financial institutions. The G7 is also looking at what it may be able to do around the frozen Russian assets.
Mr Medvedev, the deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, said on Saturday that Russia would not be able to retaliate in kind against any US seizure of its reserves.
“The reason is clear - we do not have a significant amount of American state property, including money, rights and other US assets. Therefore, the answer can only be asymmetrical. It is not a fact that it will be any less painful,” Mr Medvedev said.
“We are talking about the foreclosure, for example by a court decision, on the property of private individuals located in the jurisdiction of Russia (money, real estate and movable property in kind, property rights).”
“Yes, this is a complex story, since these individuals usually acted as investors in the Russian economy,” Medvedev said. “And we guaranteed them the inviolability of their private property rights. But the unexpected happened - their state declared a hybrid war on us. This must be answered.”
‘Staggering’ Russian casualties estimate suggests Moscow has lost double its initial invasion force
“Staggering” new British government estimates claiming Russia may have suffered 450,000 casualties since invading Ukraine would suggest Moscow has lost double the number of troops in its initial invasion force, a leading expert notes.
Russia claims attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure are retaliation
The Russian defence ministry has claimed that a series of its forces’ recent attacks on Ukraian infrastructure and other targets were a response to Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s own facilities.
Russia – which has targeted Ukrainian criticial infrastructure since the early days of its invasion – sad its forces had carried out 35 strikes in the last week against Ukrainian energy facilities, defence factories, railway infrastructure, air defences, and ammunition stocks.
It clamed these were “in response to attempts by the Kyiv regime to damage Russian energy and industrial facilities”, and had been carried out using sea- and air-launched long-range precision weapons, including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles and drones.
The ministry also said it had also targeted and hit Ukrainian troop formations as well as what it described as foreign mercenaries.
Ukraine has systematically targeted Russian oil refineries and other facilities in drone attacks in recent weeks, ignoring US requests not to do so.
Ukrainian officials said Russian missiles had pounded power facilities in central and western Ukraine on Saturday, increasing pressure on the ailing energy system as the country faces a shortage of air defences despite a breakthrough in US military aid.
Another suspect in Moscow concert hall attack detained
Russian authorities have detained another suspect as an accomplice in the attack by gunmen on a suburban Moscow concert hall that killed 144 people in March, Moscow City Courts said.
Dzhumokhon Kurbonov, a citizen of Tajikistan, is accused of providing the attackers with means of communication and financing. The judge at Moscow’s Basmanny District Court ruled that Kurbonov would be kept in custody until May 22 pending investigation and trial.
Russian state news agency RIA Novosti said Kurbonov was reportedly detained on April 11 for 15 days on the administrative charge of petty hooliganism.
Independent Russian media outlet Mediazona noted that this is a common practice used by Russian security forces to hold a person in custody while a criminal case is prepared against them.
Twelve defendants have been arrested in the case, including four who allegedly carried out the March 22 attack at the Crocus City Hall concert venue, according to RIA Novosti.
Government sets out details of military aid package
The government has set out details of what the military aid package announced by Rishi Sunak this week will include.
“We will provide over 400 vehicles to Ukraine, consisting of 160 protected mobility Husky vehicles; 162 armoured vehicles comprised of further AS90 155mm artillery guns and Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked); and 78 all-terrain vehicles made up of Bv-206 and Viking,” defence minister James Cartlidge told Labour’s John Healey.
“These will provide much needed additional artillery support, reconnaissance capabilities, and amphibious mobility to support development of the Ukrainian marine corps.”
Russia has suffered 450,000 casualties since outset of invasion, MoD estimates
Britain’s Ministry of Defence has claimed that Russia has suffered around 450,000 casualties since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Responding to a parliamentary question by Labour, armed forces minister Leo Dochery said: “We estimate that approximately 450,000 Russian military personnel have been killed or wounded, and tens of thousands more have already deserted since the start of the conflict.
“The number of personnel killed serving in Russian private military companies (PMCs) is not clear.
“We also estimate that over 10,000 Russian armoured vehicles, including nearly 3,000 main battle tanks, 109 fixed wing aircraft, 136 helicopters, 346 unmanned aerial vehicles, 23 naval vessels of all classes, and over 1,500 artillery systems of all types have been destroyed, abandoned, or captured by Ukraine since the start of the conflict.”
ICYMI: Europe is ‘too slow and lacks ambition’ in the face of global threats, says Macron
Emmanuel Macron has urged Europe to improve its defences and cut red tape as it faces existential threats from Russian aggression and American isolationism.
In a nearly two-hour speech at the Sorbonne University in Paris, Mr Macron claimed the 27-member European Union (EU) was “too slow and lacks ambition” before demanding that the bloc does not become a “vassal of the United States”.
“Our Europe is mortal. It could die,” the French president said. “We are not equipped to face the risks. We must produce more, we must produce faster and we must produce as Europeans.”
My colleague Tom Watling has the full report:
Hackers claim to have infiltrated Belarus' main security service
A Belarusian hacker activist group claims to have infiltrated the network of the country’s main KGB security agency and accessed personnel files of over 8,600 employees of the organization, which still goes under its Soviet name.
The authorities have not commented on the claim, but the website of the Belarusian KGB was opening with an empty page on Friday that said it was “in the process of development”.
Seeking to back up its claim, the Belarusian Cyber-Partisans group published a list of the website’s administrators, its database and server logs on its page in the messaging app Telegram.
Group coordinator Yuliana Shametavets told the Associated Press from New York that the attack on the KGB “was a response” to the agency’s chief Ivan Tertel, who publicly accused the group this week of plotting attacks on the country’s critical infrastructure, including a nuclear power plant.
“The KGB is carrying out the largest political repressions in the history of the country and must answer for it,” said Shametavets. “We work to save the lives of Belarusians, and not to destroy them, like the repressive Belarusian special services do.”
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2024-04-27 18:02:13Z
CBMidmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmluZGVwZW5kZW50LmNvLnVrL25ld3Mvd29ybGQvZXVyb3BlL3J1c3NpYS11a3JhaW5lLXdhci1wdXRpbi1udWNsZWFyLXdlYXBvbnMtbWlzc2lsZXMtbGF0ZXN0LWIyNTM1NzQ1Lmh0bWzSAQA
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